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This report is intended to inform advocates and decision makers about how to support the sexual reproductive rights of young people around the world. It argues that comprehensive sexuality education is critical for young people to realize their rights.
A Critical Pathway for Young People
This report recommends that high quality comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) should be delivered to all young people, both inside and outside schools. It highlights the need for CSE to be delivered by well-trained professionals in a participatory way, and emphasizes the importance of including topics related to young people’s well-being and sexuality that go beyond health outcomes.
This report shows that sexuality education programs are worth investment because they empower, build self-esteem, share information about rights, and lead to better health and well-being for young people. CSE programs delivered in schools, paired with accessible youth-friendly health services, have been shown to be not only cost-effective, but also cost saving for governments.1 However, while CSE programs have improved the efficiency of health outcomes through greater investment in prevention, and demonstrated their cost-effectiveness for health systems, it is important to look at the positive impact of CSE in the lives of the individual young people as an end in and of itself.
The report concludes with recommendations aimed at governments, civil society organizations, educators, health providers and researchers.
